Trigger Warning: Proceed With Caution

Monthly Archives: February 2013

I kneel at the altar of Ana. I pray to Mother Mia. I bow before the porcelain throne and worship ED with tears of devotion. I fast into starvation; I fight this holy war; I crusade for skinny and exorcise my demons with praises of puking. I am a fanatic, a devotee, a follower and a true disciple of this god.

“Our father who art ED,

Hallowed be thy name;

thy thinness come;

thy will be done,

In the gym as it is in heaven;

Do NOT give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive us with purging,

As we forgive them that try to feed us.

And lead us not into temptation;

But deliver us from cupcakes.

For thine is the starvation, the torture and the hell

We inflict upon ourselves,

Forever and ever, Amen.”

*****Disclaimer: This is not intended to offend anyone. I am a Christian. I believe in God. I go to church every Sunday. I pray for him to deliver us from ED every single day.

One of the first things that happens to you when you are born and enter this world (after the obligatory slap on the bum to make you cry) is being weighed. Any wonder why some of us have an obsession with weighing ourselves for the rest of our lives? Your weight when you are born is very important. The doctors note it on medical charts. Parents put it on birth announcements. Mothers discuss it all the time.

“How much did your baby weigh?”

“7lbs 6oz, but then he dropped to 6lbs 5oz.”

We know to the ounce or gram how much we weighed when we began our lives. I, for instance, know that I was the heaviest baby out of us three siblings. Why should that bother me now that both my brothers are 6’3″ and weigh about 220lbs each (sheer muscle), and are almost twice my body weight?

I don’t know.

Tonight I binged and purged for the first time in four days. I planned it. I waited for it all day. I barely made it through hot yoga because I was so hungry and so fixated on eating something, anything. I had hoped the last four days of restricting without bingeing, purging or laxatives would have yielded better results but I had no such luck. I have been bloated and have even gained weight while eating egg whites, vegetables and rice crackers. The fat attack got to me. I stared at my puffed up reflection in the studio and lost the will to carry on. It boggles my mind that I can be expanding despite my best efforts to the contrary. I have terrible urges to rekindle my sordid, dysfunctional love affair with my scale. At least that way I will know for sure. No more ‘feeling’ fat. The numbers can just say it for me.

A real anorexic came to yoga tonight. A real, honest-to-God, skin on bones, walking skeleton anorexic came and plonked herself down next to me while I was waiting to get into the studio. It made me realize how ‘normal’ I look. It made me mad. After all these years of starving, bingeing, puking, abusing diet pills and laxatives and over exercising, I don’t look sick. I’m not even remotely skinny. I am, maybe at a push, thin compared to everyone else on the planet.

I made sure I was nowhere near the anorexic in class. I didn’t want to fixate on her bones, muscles and sinews that were so beautifully displayed. I was too jealous to be close too her. Instead, I put my mat as far away from the mirrors as I could and stared at my abysmal reflection. I am too big, too fat, too healthy looking for someone who is so miserably sick. It has haunted me all my life that I have ED but don’t look like I do. This is not a case of me not being able to see myself clearly or of thinking that I am bigger than I really am. It is just the honest truth. The anorexic showed me the stark contrast between us. I know that often many people with ED can be normal weight or even over weight. I just wish it didn’t have to be me. I came home and ate egg whites and lettuce and then thought about puking them back up. Somethings got to give. I want to see my bones every time I look at my reflection. Sad, but devastatingly true.